Tag: Poetry

This is for my sisters whose hearts break open with each new dawn. For those whose pulse sounds desperate in their temples. For beating hearts bruising tremulous veins. For those wearing skin like suits of armor: we are gladiators passing as sister, mother, daughter, friend; our breasts and waistlines labeled with adjectives not seen in... Continue Reading →

A really quick poem: Living Edgelessly Being a poet means living edgelessly on the verge. Always free- falling through life and line-breaks, there are poems in the vulnerability I carry like pocket-knife. In the lethal words I swallow. In the explosive battle of worth. I sweat from the outside in. Let water pool between my... Continue Reading →

Today has been a weird day. There were awesome things (hearing amazing poetry and sharing a poem at an open mic), painful things (getting rear-ended at a stoplight), boring things (sitting at Urgent Care following the rear-ending for what felt like eternity), stressful things (talking to insurance company), bizarre things (clerk at Walgreens making a... Continue Reading →

My voice walks into a room. I was going to start with hello? It’s me… by way of introduction but then I realized Adele already took that and now you’re all singing and I don’t have Adele’s voice and that’s not the kind of voice I’m talking about, and – Let’s start over. My voice... Continue Reading →

Last week, I attended a retreat - "Courage to Lead for Young Leaders and Activists" - with Parker Palmer and his organization, "Center for Courage and Renewal." I feel this desire -- and something of a pressure -- to write about it. People keep asking me, "how was your trip?," "how was the retreat?," "what... Continue Reading →

Name This I have always been precise in my naming. I want the just-right word at the just-right time: I wield the power of my wording like a weapon. Verbing nouns, changing phrases to make them new and surprising, I move to the matters of soul heart-clenchingly quickly-- hold on, y'all. This is how things... Continue Reading →

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let... Continue Reading →

(Content note: Sexual assault) Give me a moment. Just a moment of time in this swiftly turning always moving, frantically humming over-caffeinated universe -- just give me a moment to tell you one thing. One story. One thing to say. I want to scream it from the mountain tops with a bullhorn the size of... Continue Reading →

Why I hold vigil every month witnessing Black lives lost to police violence and proclaiming that Black Lives Matter Because I am white. Because I have work to do. Because I do not always know how to do it. Because people mostly honk, and wave, and drive. Because I waved at a white woman and... Continue Reading →